Strings that Tie to You
by TygerTyger9
Summary: He rewrote, not one, but all of the lines.


**A/N** - For the record, if anything along these lines happened in the programme I would not be a happy bunny. I really wanted to explore it though, and I think he actually comes across a lot like Ten was near the end. It was my way of proving to myself that SM will not go there, I'm convinced anyway! I wrote this early on so it's a bit stodgy in places.

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><p>The Doctor wrestled with the console controls, desperately trying to tame his ship. She was not cooperating. In fact, he would have said that she was deliberately defying him. She jerked abruptly and he was thrown away from the console and landed hitting his head sharply on the railing. "Ow," he hissed at her from the floor and brought his hand up to his head to find it bloodied. "What did I do?" he asked, exasperated, with his arms reaching out to her. She knew what he did, and he knew too. The TARDIS made a guttural hum that he could swear was a growl.<p>

"I'm sorry," he offered at last, "you know I had to." He clambered back to his feet. _Coward,_ they both thought at once. He was a bloody coward, he knew it; he didn't need to be told. But he couldn't bear to put her through that, to watch her go through it. But there was no escape for him in the end, he would always remember.

"It was happening all over again, you saw it, she was barely here before she was gone." He pulled at his hair, his jaw squared and clenched. _Everybody has their time, but why was it in such short supply for her_? He rubbed roughly at his face, smearing blood above his eye and he blinked a few times to dislodge the tears that were stubbornly gathering.

He sat heavily into the jump seat rubbing his hands into his trouser legs. They were filthy: his hands and his trousers, and every bit of him. He hadn't bothered to change yet, still covered in dust and blood and tears. He realised then that they had landed somewhere. "Where have you brought me then, old girl?" he sighed heavily, before hauling himself back to his feet and running his hands down the fronts of his shirt. He didn't dare try to use the scanner; he wasn't in the mood to keep fighting with her. He braced himself and marched heavily towards the doors, took a breath and stepped through them.

"Doctor!" came a, not entirely unfamiliar, voice. He turned towards its origin: a woman waving across the street at him. He squinted at her and she trotted towards him, dodging the slow moving, gridlocked traffic. She had long, dark blond hair and was wearing a fitted jacket and a giddy grin.

"Hello?" he said, still trying to place her.

She came close enough to see him properly and her face changed. "What on earth happened to you?"

"Oh you know, this and that," he laughed weakly and studied her face. _Oh!_

"Don't you remember me?" she asked throwing her hands up to frame her face. "It's only been a month. Melody?" At the same moment he caught sight of a name badge: _Dr. Melody Williams_

"Of course I remember you, how could I forget?" He smiled a watery smile as he took in the sight of the woman who never was River.

"Dinner?" she suggested.

"Food would be good. Very good," he replied noticing his hunger for the first time.

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><p>She returned from the hotdog vendor to the bench where he was sitting at a forty-five degree angle with his legs stretched out in front of him. Her arms were full of bottled water, hotdogs and napkins. She handed him a bottle and a hotdog, before sinking down next to him. He started to eat slowly, his stomach unaccustomed to food and his taste buds unaccustomed to hotdogs. She twisted the top off her bottle of water and handed it to him, taking his unopened bottle for herself. He took a mouthful of water and washed down the tang of hotdog along with the taste of dust and despair, gasping. She ate a bite of her own meal and then looked at him shaking her head. "What happened to you, Doctor?"<p>

"Got into a bit of a tiff with the TARDIS." He knew that wasn't what she was asking, but that was how he chose to answer.

"What are you like, eh?" she asked gently before rummaging in her handbag and taking out a packet of facial wipes. She pulled one from the packet and held it out towards him gesturing a _May I?_ He consented with a weak nod and she gently wiped his face clean of the dust and dirt that had settled in his pores. Normally he would object to being mothered like this, but at this moment it was exactly what he needed. He sighed and closed his eyes to allow her rub the floral scented wipe over his eyelids, slightly scrubbing his brows. "You were bleeding," she stated simply. "Yep," he confirmed. Her right leg was folded under her and she was turned toward him. Her breath falling over his damp skin made him shiver. He forced his eyes open to banish the reverie before it began.

"Now. All better," she said. _If only it were so simple_, he thought. She handed him some more wipes and he worked cleaning his neck and his hands. When he was done he finished the last mouthful of his hotdog. Melody gathered all of the rubbish and brought it to the nearest trashcan. She sat back down next to him, tapping the lid of her water bottle with her nail. "So what brings you to New York, Doctor?"

He looked up and glanced around, seeing Lady Liberty standing in the bay through a veil of fluttering leaves. He was sitting on a bench in Battery Park with someone who was never his wife.

"I have no idea," he answered. She laughed even though he hadn't intended to be funny.

"What about you? Are you living here?" he continued, hoping that she hadn't told him this last month when she met his future self. He didn't want to give the game away.

"Ha, Lord no, I wish. I'm just giving a couple of guest lectures in NYU. The Mayans are very much in vogue this year, 30th anniversary of all that business with their calendar," she winked. "The city is overrun with archaeologists, you can't turn a corner without running into one of our kind." She said it as though they were a species; that was how he had always thought of them. "And look," she continued, "you just did."

_Still an archaeologist still named Melody. Impossible Ponds, _he marvelled.

She patted him lightly on the shoulder and he turned his head to look up at her properly now. Her eyes were different but somehow the same, still full of gentleness and mischief. Her features were much like her father's but luckily, he mused, she had her mother's nose. Those eyes though, were very much her own. He hadn't ever seen them on anyone else. Light grey with a ring of gold at the centre where the iris fell away into the chasm of her pupil. Her hair was so very different, not like her other version at all, dropping straight down from her head. _Linear_.

"You're thinking unkind thoughts about archaeologists again aren't you?" she asked after he had been staring at her a little too long.

"Ha! Archaeology!" He straightened himself on the bench and turned to her. "You couldn't find a real job?" he chided, attempting to elicit a reaction.

"Shut up, you big idiot," she responded, but was smiling fondly. "I didn't spend all that time in the library to listen to those sorts of digs," she teased and didn't detect the slight blackening of his expression. She didn't know him well enough to notice. "Sorry Doctor, but I spend my days digging in the dirt, and I love it." A memory of River doing the same flashed across his mind, and the darkness lifted from his face.

"When's your next lecture?" he asked. She lifted her wrist and turned her watch face to read it.

"In just under an hour," she replied. "Walk with me?"

"Always," he said offering her his arm.

They arrived on time at the University. He waved her off and she turned back to return the gesture. "Will I see you again Doctor?"

"I hope so," he said

"Me too," she said and then turned and trotted off towards her lecture.

* * *

><p>He saw her one more time, when she met him for the first time. He was wandering about looking for trouble, entering random coordinates and seeing where the old girl would bring him. Still traveling alone but not minding so much. He landed with a flourish and bounded down the steps and through the TARDIS doors.<p>

_Earth_, he surmised and looked around a little more, _Mexico? No Belize!_ He ventured forward at the sight _of Lubaantun, place of the fallen stones, once a brilliant town, great restaurants, until that blasted Crystal Skull ruined it all._

"Sorry, what?" came a slightly out of breath voice from behind him. He must have been talking out loud: old habits. He spun to see Melody standing there, hair tied up messily, face filthy with dust and sweating all over her, equally filthy, clothes. He smiled widely at the sight of her. She tilted her head to remind him of the question.

"The crystal skull?" he asked.

"You're not one of those are you?"

"One of…?"

"Alien hunters." She waved her hands around her face as she said it, to convey how farcical she found the notion. "Bloody film has a lot to answer for still." She blew at a strand of hair that had fallen out of its bindings and into her face as she eyed him sceptically.

"What? Alien? No, the idiots all killed each other over it. A lump of quartz would you believe that?"

She squinted at him and he approached her and asked, "Melody, don't you know who I am?"

There it was – total lack of recognition. _Ha._ His hand had been rising to touch her on the shoulder and he retracted it.

"Should I?" she asked.

"No, I suppose not." he responded sadly, swallowing the lump that had formed in his throat. He felt at last that he finally fully understood his wife. How she had felt that day, the day he first met her. It felt like the end. He knew he wouldn't see her again after this.

Melody was laughing now. _What must she be thinking?_ He had no clue.

"Tell me more about the skull," she said walking past him. "I'm just heading back to the campsite to get some more water."

He trotted and caught up with her. "I can take you and show you if you like?"

"That's the worst chat up line I think I've ever heard," she teased him and he coughed.

"You know my name," she said, "it's only fair that you tell me yours…The Doctor! What sort of name is 'the Doctor'? Doctor Who?"

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><p>Later he showed her the TARDIS, and brought her to see the skull. They ended up running for their lives from some angry Mayan clerics before he dropped her back where and when he found her. He wanted to ask her to come with him, but deep in his hearts he knew that she was a substitute. All he would think about for all the time she was there was River and that wasn't fair to any of them. "No I won't come with you," she interrupted his thoughts.<p>

"Presumptuous!" he said flustered. "Eh, why not?"

"Not saying that today wasn't fantastic fun, because it was, but it's not me. I'm happy here digging in the dirt, figuring things out the hard way."

"The boring way you mean," he interjected. "What is it about archaeologists? I'll never understand it."

"Besides," she started in an irked tone, "I have responsibilities here, can't go swanning about the universe with strange men. I have a little boy at home."

He startled at this. He hadn't considered that possibility at all.

"Oh… And his father?" he ventured.

"No longer on the scene I'm afraid, it's just the two of us now. What about you? Are you married Doctor?"

"Yes. Well I was…long story." He raked his fingers through his hair, avoiding her gaze.

"Any children?" she persisted, not sensing the soreness of the subject.

"Yes," he replied, still not able to meet her eyes. "A little girl, she died soon after she was born."

"Oh," she said and he looked at her, he could see her heart was breaking for him. _Funny like that, humans. So much empathy._

"Anyway," he said in an attempt to pick the mood up from the floor, "best be off then Melody Pond."

She cocked a suspicious eyebrow at him. "How do you know my mother's maiden name?"

"Lucky guess?" he offered and she shook her head.

"You're impossible," she said and she hugged him tightly but briefly.

"Pretty much. Yes."

She stepped back from the TARDIS and asked, "So, Doctor, will I see you again?"

"Yes, you will!" he told her. "See you then." He saluted her before disappearing inside the TARDIS once more.

The TARDIS hummed, a sigh perhaps_. Forgiven?_ he wondered. He wished he could do the same for himself. "Not one line." She had made him promise. But he rewrote all of them.


End file.
